Tuesday night’s forum at the Boyd County Fairgrounds conducted by the Kentucky Department of Charitable Gaming was premature. It was called to get public comments to proposed reforms that will affect local gaming operations, but it is difficult to comment on changes that are still a work in progress.
Those attending the forum — mostly non-profit agencies that operate area charitable bingo and other games of chance — had lots of questions about the proposals, but they received few answers. In fact, Kentucky Department of Charitable Gaming Commissioner Henry G. Lackey said the agency doesn’t have answers because the proposals have not be finalized. He promised that Kentucky’s system will be new and “unlike any other system” used for gaming nationwide, but Lackey could not say just how it will be different.
Lackey said the details of the new system will depend on the results of requests for proposals and bids the department let last week, which are not due until early December, and as we all know, the devil usually is in the details.
Under Lackey’s leadership, DCG officials are seeking proposals to move charitable gaming in the state to a bar code inventory system to monitor in real time the receipts, payouts and inventory of each licensed charity. The agency would become the central point for contracting, purchasing and tracking the sale of bingo and pull-tab games. A new computerized software system would track inventory from manufacturers through distributors to organizations and would eliminate most of the manual reporting charities are now required to do.
Why the proposed changes? Well, DCG officials apparently are convinced that illegal bootlegged games account for an estimated $100 million in sales, resulting in a loss of $10 million for charitable organizations and $600,000 in lost state fees.
The nearly three dozen players and representatives from charities, manufacturers and distributors attending Tuesday’s forum clearly were skeptical abut the reforms. Some are taking a wait-and-see attitude, while others are downright opposed to them.
A bill that would encompass the proposed changes has yet to be filed for consideration by the 2010 Kentucky General Assembly, but even if the changes are approved next year by legislators, Lackey said the earliest the reforms could be in place would be 2011.
We commend the DCG for actively seeking public input for the proposals, but it is difficult to comment on proposals that have yet to be finalized. Once the bill is written, the DCG should again schedule forums throughout the state to get the comments of those local charities that depend on bingo and other games of chance to raise essential funds.
Following the forum, Jack McClelland of El Hasa Shrine Temple summed up the thoughts of many of those at the forum when he said he was “not any more clear than I was before I got here” on the reforms. “I sort of think they got the cart before the horse.”
Exactly so. There is a time to actively seek comments at forums. Tuesday’s forum at the fairgrounds was not one of the time.
Editorials
A bit premature — 10/16/09
It is difficult to comment on proposals yet to be finalized
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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